Rumor: Certain Ledger Scenes Could Get Cut from Dark Knight

Posted by mike

April 10, 2008

While I wouldn’t normally jump on rumors so quickly, Cinema Blend is reporting that they received a tip that told of certain Warner Bros. execs that were debating on cutting out a certain unsettling scene from July’s release of The Dark Knight. The source of the tip explains that during test screenings of the film, the audience is not responding well to a certain scene featuring Heath Ledger due to his recent death. I’m going to be mentioning some slightly spoilerish details from the scene, so if you’re not interested in hearing them stop reading now.

The scene apparently features Ledger’s character Joker in a body bag pretending to be dead. I believe pics of this were leaked (and just as quickly snatched up and removed from blogs) a few weeks ago. If that’s the case, the scene in which is being mentioned by the source probably exists.

Keep in mind that this is only a rumor so far, so all my thoughts are mere speculations based on said rumors. My only problem with censoring out a scene in this fashion is that Ledger was alive for the complete filming of The Dark Knight. So, his performances were as he wanted them to be (while he was still alive). To remove scenes due to his death, to me, is a disservice to his work and his legacy as an actor. This movie, and his portrayal of Joker inside of it, will probably live on to be one of his most recognized (if not creepiest) performances so far. This would have been the role to really solidify him as a prime time actor and prove to everyone how well he was able to perform as one. To remove scenes that he deemed to be acceptable for reasons other than artistic styling, would be cutting out possible intentions he had and in effect tarnishing the legacy that this film is set to create for him.

Again, this is only a rumor at this point, so all of what I said above is my feelings based on that rumor being true. If it turns out to be false information, then great and we can all pretend we didn’t read that last rant/paragraph by me.